Fighting the relentless crusade for common-sense conservatism: Life, Liberty, Property, and the Pursuit of Happiness.Live, from the liberal left coast... You will be assimilated!

Tuesday, 15 January 2008

Done.

As far as I am concerned, I am done with George W. Bush. I have spent most of the last few years of my political life apologizing for him. No more.

I've been apologizing for his failure to implement a "surge" strategy in Iraq back in 2004, when it could have worked just as well as today and resulted in much more rapid progress. Sure, he didn't have the political clout to do it when his enemies had too much power in the Senate. Sure, the situation in Iraq had to get worse before a clear majority in Washington would agree to make it better. So what? A real leader LEADS and makes the tough decisions. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

I've been apologizing for Harriet Miers. Sure, with folks like McCain and Specter among the Senate GOP, and the democrats filibustering everything, W felt his hands were tied and he would be unable to advance a great conservative candidate. So what? He needed to put up the best judges possible and fight for them. As we saw from the conservative backlash over Miers and the subsequent appointment of Alito, the power was there all along to get the right people on the bench. W just needed to actually do it.

I've been apologizing for the out of control spending. OK, we all know Congress spends, not the President. But the President can do two important things: lead and veto. Where was W during the first six years of his Presidency when it came to out of control spending? Was he out there preaching small government and fiscal responsibility? Was he breaking out the big red pen and saying "NO!" to Congress? Nope. He was too busy rubber stamping whatever Congress threw at him to give a crap about our financial future.

And now... the last straw.

The Solicitor General, an agent of the Bush administration, has submitted a brief in the upcoming DC gun ban case that... SUPPORTS THE GUN BAN!

That's it. Done. No more apologies.

I tend to be a single issue voter when it comes to guns. For the last several elections, I've basically supported the Republican Party without looking to hard at individual positions on gun rights. After all, most Republicans are far, far better than most democrats on guns. The Clinton administration gave us the assault weapons ban. The Republicans who took over allowed the ban to expire without renewing it. That was good enough for me on my single issue, allowing me to look at other things like national security, the judiciary, and fiscal policy. And... President Bush has come up lacking on these issues. But I always felt the need to apologize because, damn it, at least with W in the White House no one was going to take away our guns.

I can no longer continue to believe that.

If this is the way a Republican administration responds to a constitutional challenge of the outright ban on handguns in our nation's capital, then the time has come to remove the blinders and return to single issue voting. If the Second Amendment fails, all our other rights become meaningless. Our next President HAS to be one who will support and defend the Constitution, all of the Constitution, and especially our Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Who will that be?

Of the current candidates, only two have a demonstrated record of supporting gun rights: Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson. Of these two, I believe only one can defeat his democrat opponent in November, and that's Fred. And... Huckabee is a wishy washy liberal who "talks good" to Republicans about a few "red meat" issues like guns, gays, and babies. But his record is liberal. He says he is a fiscal conservative, but he raises taxes. He talks tough on immigration, but he supported benefits for illegal aliens. So he talks good on gun rights - but what would he actually do?

I can't trust Huck on ANY issue, so why should I trust him on THE issue?

So that leaves Fred Thompson. Period. End of discussion. I don't care about his age. I don't care about the fire in his belly. I don't care about his wife. I don't care about his late entry.

I care about our Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

PERIOD.

And I care about getting this election over with and getting the next President sworn in so we can put the era of Bush behind us. I can't wait for his administration to end. I only hope the next President is an improvement, and not a step further back.

43 Comments

I'll stand by my two votes for Bush in 2000 and 2004. But only because I was voting AGAINST Gore and Kerry, who would have been far worse.

But Bush has been such a let down. I really wish we'd had a better choice in the 2000 primary. We did not. McCain would have been just as bad as W.

Hell, McCain might at least have been better at aggressively fighting the war on terror - even if he would have been worse on some other issues.

But McCain couldn't have done a worse job with the DC gun ban case. Even a liberal democrat like Bill Richardson - or even Howard Dean! - probably would have done a better job.

The SG opinion, if adopted by SCOTUS, would basically give government carte blanche to ban and seize guns. That's something even Richardson and Dean are on record opposing in their respective offices.

Thank God GWB is out of office soon.

And the saddest thing is:

I do believe that GWB thinks he is doing the right thing with all this. I don't think for a minute that he is a sleazy pol out to screw us while hiding behind a mantle of conservatism. I just think he believes his big government compassion IS conservatism. We've just been blind to it because we were so desperate to beat Gore and Kerry - and, despite my rant, it is still good that we beat them.

And that is why I fear Huckabee more. I don't get that "I really believe this" attitude from Huck on anything other than his core religious issues of marriage and abortion. I think he wants to promote big government liberalism, KNOWS it is liberalism, and is purposely using his faith as a shield to hide behind.

Will we be so blind again, just to beat Hillary or Obama? And if we are, and elect Huck, is he even any better?

Bush and Rove have ruined the Republican Party as the home of conservatives. They lost the Senate and the House. For this and beating two of the weakest presidential candidates ever fielded by the dems, Gore and Kerry, Rove is regarded as a genius and Bush as Teddy Roosevelt.

Ten years ago, the brief of the SG would have carried great weight with the Supreme Court, and a bad brief (i.e., one with the wrong analysis due to whatever reason, including one driven by a desire to have a certain outcome)might have doomed that "right" side's position. I just wonder if the thirty or so clerks follow the law-related blogs (or at least the better ones), including their hyper-links to other blogs, so that a lawyer-blooger who wouldn't have the legal standing, or the money to file an amicus brief, couldn't nevertheless punch some holes in the appellant's. respondent's or amici briefs simply by posting what is in essence a (law review type) comment on their own blog, and having it picked up by a more well known blogger? The power of the individual (bloggers especially) is growing. I hope the clerks read the blogs, and somebody takes the time to carefully take apart the SG's bad brief.

But you're still making apologies! To wit: "Sure, he didn't have the political clout to do it when his enemies had too much power in the Senate." When was that surge implemented? After the Dems took over Congress! For 6 years GWB had them in his pocket and did nothing!
BTW. While I totally agree with you, I do get a HUGE kick out of the fact that many important rights can be taken away little by little and you don't get terribly upset. But man, go for the guns and watch out! Hilariously sad.

When I voted for Bush in 2000, it was because he was a Republican. For some reason unknown to me now, I thought that he would turn the tide on liberal politics and move conservatism forward. Boy was I wrong. I personally am getting sick and tired of not having a real conservative in office, especially when we see so many people wanting that. I am about ready to toss the Republican party out the window. I will never vote for a Democrat in this lifetime, so my options are getting limited.

It is good to see the Bush administrations' real position on the Constitution. Tirany is the most popular position of the two major partys. The "only the government and it's lackys may hold real power" attitude is disgusting. Once again the people are betrayed by thoes sworn to uphold the Constitution. Shame on G.W. Bush and all who support this fraud against us all by supporting a clearly unconstitutional law i.e. the DC gun ban. This is a dark day for freedom loving people everywhere.

I voted against Algore and Kerry too, I grew up as a Liberal Democrat and know exactly what I'm fighting against with them - but really know Republicans less.
I vote for Guns - not for the Party. I won't vote for Rudy or Mitt.

I give him credit for standing his ground on Iraq. Resolution has been in short supply in American politicians during my lifetime, and Bush has been resolute in his prosecution of the war. I think it will be a long time before we have someone else in the White House willing to do what he thinks is right in a matter such as this at the kind of political cost Bush has paid.

Of course, it could be that his willingness to stay the course may also have led him to stick with poor generals and advisors, too. Still, I'd rather have a man like Bush in charge of a situation like Iraq than a more flexible, but pusillanimous leader. Face it, most American politicians are quite fickle, and have little stomach for facing down the mob of mainstream world and domestic opinion when the chips are down. Bush did.

I agree with you in general. He's got spine, but he's just wrong on so many issues. McCain-Feingold, No Child etc, Medicare Part D, Harriet Myers, Immigration "reform", and now siding with DC on this gun issue.

I'd love to see a true conservative in the White House, and Bush certainly isn't.

The LA Times says the SG is not supporting the DC Gun Ban and in fact believes that the Ban is unconstitutional. What he's doing is working to assure all federal gun regulation is not undone with a single ruling on this case. I personally think that 99% of federal gun regulation DOES need to be undone but to paint the entirety Bush administration as gun banners with a broad brush because of this action is a bit ludicrous. Neither history nor this current action by the SG supports it.

Gun owners are to the National Repubs what gays are to the National Dems. They want our votes. They want our money. They need our grassroots support. But, once the election is over they want us to shut the hell up and get back in the closet because they aren't actually going to *do* anything for us.

Very good piece and I have been and done there and that. Stalwart support for W during the tough times and then a kick in the teeth over Miers, Sham/Grahamnesty and now guns to name but 3. Oh, yeah, and this pathological urge on the part of all presidents in their last year to "do something about the ME Peace Process" - gaak!

W has been resolute on some things but has royally screwed up others and most of us defended him throughout. The Dems can dream about impeachment all they want (in the 8th year? what are they smoking?) but he does need to be gone and on this I agree with the domestic enemy. Just let him go the normal way, finishing out his 8th year. I bet he's as ready to be gone as we are for him to be gone.

I also totally agree on our choices and that's why I'm giving to Fred until it hurts, literally.

Wake up, Republicans, before you discover your party permanently in the wilderness because we betrayed our conservative principles.

i do not own a gun, but my friends and family do - I will NOT vote if Mitt or Rudy is my only choice - this election is going to be like a Rubik Cube, to get where you need to be, you need to tear apart what you currently have, otherwise a solution will never come

I am basically a single issue voter as well. I voted GB in 2000 for a single reason -- the supreme court. I voted in 2004 for a single reason, the WoT.

Because of GB, this case is going up to a mostly "friendly" court regarding the 2nd Amd. That's Good.

If we had 8 years of Gore or 4 years of Kerry, that may well not have been the case. The AWB would not have sunset underneath Gore.

I follow the paradigm of "vote passion in the primary and party in the general". Fred has my vote, he's had it since he announced. I hope it actually matters after SC. But I'll vote party in the General. Even for Romney, Huck, Guliani or McCain. I won't like it, I don't like any of them. But better them than Hillary.

I'd rather have a pro-gun "tax and spend" "liberal" GOP pres than a "anti-gun" "tax and spend" Dem.

With the GB administration, Gun Control has been a pretty quiet issue. The scariest part, IMHO, being the 2006 UN meetings. And we sent the right people to that telling the others to effectively go pound sand. Kerry wouldn't have sent those people, and we could be in a lot worse shape.

If there were a pro gun Dem, I MIGHT think about them, but, as a party, in general, the GOP is more pro-gun that the Dems are, so they're getting my vote.

The people are important, but party matters too, because our government is party based, not person based.

I am another who has finally given up on the Republicrats. After McCain sold us out to Teddy Kennedy over immigration, and the RNC head characterized all who opposed that ill fathered con job as being somehow racist, I realized the Rep.party no longer wants my kind in its ranks. To be sold down the river on the gun issue is no longer a shock, merely a confirmation that the Rep's have left me standing ae they moved over to be Kennedy's pals.
If Thompson is nominated I wll vote for him - if McCain , Giuliani or Huck are nominated, I will be gone fishing on election day, and the whole republican slate will likely lose my vote and a few hundred thousand others like me. Hillary or Obama will at least be known enemies, not treacherous false friends, so I will accept the risk of a Dem victory- it will matter very little in the long run.

Here is Washington state we have a lot of single-issue 2nd Amendment conservatives too (including most of my family). The result is that the Democrats own all three branches of government.
My family members complain about that all the time, but it is they who are responsible. I keep telling them - you almost never get a chance to vote for someone you really like, but you ALWAYS have a chance to help keep someone worse out of office. If you don't at least try to do that, don't EVER complaint about the result.

"I do get a HUGE kick out of the fact that many important rights can be taken away little by little and you don't get terribly upset. But man, go for the guns and watch out! Hilariously sad."

Apparently, reading comprehension is not your strong point.

Go back and read it again. I'll wait.... ok, done?

Now, note that the author postulated a long list of disappointments, each of which managed to ratchet up the level of dissatisfaction? Note that he did not say "oh well, there goes one of my rights, but I don't give that much of a crab because it's not my Second Amendment rights".

Now note that he clearly postulated that all our other rights depend on our Second Amendment rights. Maybe he's wrong (I don't think so), but at least he is clear and consistent.

Which you are not. Meaning you are neither clear nor consistent nor have you contributed anything to the discussion.

Paul, reading your response was exactly like listening to my brothers and my father when they explain why they didn't vote. And the result is that WA state has become pure blue.
Regarding your central point, that all other rights depend on the right to possess firearms - I agree. Here's my point: I am upset by the fact that the Democrats who run state government here are converting this state into a "socialist paradise" - make that an "unarmed socialist paradise".
There is a difference between walking back and forth, which is what you get when you vote Republican on this issue, and running straight off the cliff, which is what you get when the other side wins.
We had an incredibly close gubernatorial race a couple years ago, which, after several recounts, was won by the Democratic candidate. My brother didn't vote in that election. He's got a lot of friends who didn't vote either.

I know the frustration of seeing a single PRINCIPLE issue be abandoned by people you thought were believers in that principle.

But you can't really tell me you're doing your duty for America, for THE REST OF US, for people LIKE YOU, if you sit home and don't vote against the Dem in the next election.

It isn't about Bush, and you can't teach a lesson to the Republican party (they probably won't even try to learn it) without screwing up the rest of us so badly that we'll forever hold the conservative base responsible for abandoning the country to leftism in a fit of pique.

Threaten to stay home, to try to get them to see how mad you are, sure... but for God's sake and the sake of people like ME, please don't actually stay home in November. Please just vote NO to Hilary or Obama or whoever they put up, by voting yes for the guy who might not be perfect.

No Rudy, NO Mitt, NO McCain, NO Hitlery, NO Osama Obama. Won't vote for any of em', nope. If those are my choices, I'll hope the U.S. goes more to hell in the next 4 years and someone appears that I can vote for. If not? Hell, I may be dead by 2016 and then I won't care anymore.

"I've been apologizing for his failure to implement a "surge" strategy in Iraq back in 2004, when it could have worked just as well as today and resulted in much more rapid progress. Sure, he didn't have the political clout to do it when his enemies had too much power in the Senate. Sure, the situation in Iraq had to get worse before a clear majority in Washington would agree to make it better. So what? A real leader LEADS and makes the tough decisions. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

You can say what you want but, in my considered opinion, on this score you're "The Mother of All Monday Morning Quarterbacks." How can you be certain a 2007-style surge would have worked back in 2004? Is your middle name "Nostradamus?" Conditions, conditions, conditions. the conditions for a successful surge had to be in place and, historians will no doubt discover, they weren't available before 2006. As General Petraeus might say, "More troops and a bigger footprint does not automatically equal more security." The "surge" was a part of a fundamental change in strategy and tactics.

Indeed, one can make a very strong case that our surge this past year worked as well as it did because, by mid-2006, most Sunnis had finally pulled their heads out of their asses and realized their pact with Al Qaeda had brought them nothing but grief and corpses. In short, they realized they were sailing on the "Al-Titanic" and if they didn't jump ship, start taking action on their own, and cut deals, they were all going down.

You claim Bush isn't a "real leader": so what the f*** was all that stuff Bush did after November 2006? If another "Profiles in Courage" book is ever written, Bush will almost certainly be "Profile No. 1." Almost anybody else would have caved to the Democrats, instead he did something totally unexpected and doubled down. If that ain't intestinal fortitude, I don't know what is.

Hell, it took Lincoln three years to put together a team with a winning strategy to beat the Confederates. Indeed, by early 1864, roughly 300,000 Union soldiers had already died of disease and military malfeasance. You obviously would have been a "On to Richmond" kind of guy despite the fact that Richmond meant little as long as there were effective Confederate armies in the field. Look at World War II: we took most of our casualties in 1944-45, when we were ostensibly WINNING our wars against the Germans and the Japanese. Using your logic, I guess FDR, George Marshall, and Dwight Eisenhower were all dip-s**ts because they didn't mount an invasion of Normandy in 1942--and "damn the torpedoes" whether they were ready or not, huh?

So give me a break. I suspect in 20 years military and political historians will marvel at Bush's (and probably even Rumsfeld's) actions and wonder, "How in hell were they able to defeat Saddam, occupy Iraq, defeat a fanatical insurgency, and rebuild Iraq's government so quickly and with so relatively few casualties?"

I've got a sawbuck that says I'll be right. Care to make a friendly wager?

I'm also dismayed at the SG's decision to try and prop up federal gun control, in general, by supporting the DC handgun ban. The decision is motivated more by the desire to keep federal power than to do the right thing.

Having said that, if you support the 2nd Amendment, then you cannot vote for a Democrat, and you cannot NOT vote for a Republican.

I want Fred to get the nomination, so I can feel great about voting for him. However, I will feel good about voting for any Republican over any Democrat who is currently running.

Politics is the art of the possible. If we waited for perfect, we would not have had the AWB sunset. We would have had President Gore.

I too get pretty torked at all the Monday morning quarterbacking. Yeah, it would have been great to have a "surge" in 2004 (why not in late 2003, eh?) but then it might not have worked.

Maybe putting in 500,000 American soldiers from the gitgo would have provided the desired effect of quelling any and all resistance by indigenous as well as foreign jihadist nutbags that were infiltrating into the country to "get a piece of the action." But then without the confidence of the Iraqi people grown sick and tired of pure, unadulterated Islamism, there certainly wouldn't have been any real actionable intelligence and 500,000 American soldiers would have offered far too many tempting targets ... not to mention the expense of maintaining that many soldiers for a couple of years. You bet the Donks would have been screaming about that!

In any case, Iraq did prove to be the fly paper to attract the Islamist kooks who wanted their day of infamy in the sandbox of Iraq. It's pretty clear desposing Saddam did distract Qaeda and other militant Islamic groups from working another 911 in America or elsewhere in Europe. As it was there were attempts including the 711 bombings and now even Muslim countries are reaping what they've sown for having whored themselves to the crazy Islamists in their midst since Black September 1970. Also there is a strategic dimension to having American forces bracketing Iran to its east and west. Never underestimate that geo-political reality, particularly as Iran's own nuclear aspirations continue to unfold.

It's my view that never have so few accomplished so much. The nearly 4000 American soldiers who died on the frontiers of freedom in the hellholes of the Middle East may have indeed averted a very real World War IV (World War III was the Cold War whether some recognize that fact or not) between Western Nations and Muslim thugocracies/terrorist organizations. It was kind of a safety valve to demonstrate the military superiority of infidel troops and the crazy extremism of those murdering other Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of Allah, Mohammed, and the Koran.

If say France and England had been as far-sighted when Hitler was bombing Spain or when he invaded the Sudentenland, to have begun bombing the crap out of Germany in direct retaliation for Hitler's own offensive actions against his neighbors, we would not have seen the lives of 270,000 American soldiers snuffed out in the European Theater and more than likely the world would have also not witnessed 65 million combatants and civilians killed as a result of emboldened fascists.

Yeah, it was stupid for Bush to sign on to the McCain-Feingold Incumbency Protection Act, hand the Education Reform Bill over to that drunken killer Ted Kennedy, and to have tried to naively "bring a new tone" to Washington when the Democrats were clearly in a divisive mood aided and abetted by their lying lap dogs in the lamestream media. I truly believe history will judge George W. less harshly particularly when the horrors of Islamofascism plays itself out over the next five to ten years. We're caught up way too much the liberal media spin and the rancor of partisanship which the Democrats have used to great advantage. But putting party before country will certainly result in a backlash, probably much sooner than anyone believes if the economy goes bad and a Democrat begins to prematurely bring the troops home thus initiating a bloodbath which will rival that of Indo-China when Nixon and the Democratically-controlled Congress betrayed the South Vietnamese at the request of the anti-war peaceniks.

If a Donk gets into office, all bets are off. If a majority of American people turn out to be complete morons and put either sHrillary or that empty suit Obama into the White House, this country will be in some very deep, deep doo doo economically, fiscally and militarily. Little doubt they will rush to "repair our image in the world", try and play kissy face with Islamic extremists hoping such affections will win Muslim radicals over and peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars.

The swamps of Wahabbism will begin filling back up and the Islamic world will become emboldened and within the decade I can't help but think that a world-wide conflagration will occur. However this time over a billion people will perish in the very World War that Democrat peaceniks and leftists were warning us "neo-cons" about if Bush "stirred up a hornet's nest" in Iraq - which of course the latter scenario didn't and hasn't happened.

How ironic and how sad, that the thoroughly discredited spirit of Neville Chamberlain is alive and well in the Demonrat Party during such perilous times. Instead of fighting the real fascists (Islamic fascists), today's Neville Chamberlains call the leaders of the free world fascists for proactively destroying Islamic extremists before they can work their evil on innocent populations! Postively Orwellian! But stupid is as stupid does.

The Bush vote was always the anti-Gore, and then later, anti-Kerry + post-911-conduct vote. Half of what Bush considers his 'base' are just people who were desperate to keep the country out of the hands of Gore and, especially, Kerry.

Ironically, I'm a pro-gun Libertarian taking a new look at a couple of Republican candidates. I would definitely vote for Thompson if the Rs put him forward. Even without agreeing with him on every issue, he's pro-gun, a federalist and a fiscal conservative, and that's good enough to run with.

Huckabee, Romney, McCain and Guiliani will not get my vote, even against Hillary or Obama. I'll hope the Rs take back the House, but I'd vote Libertarian in the general presidential before I'd vote for a "centrist" Republican.

I used to think that people who accused George Bush of being stupid were just left wing hacks not worthy of my consideration. I still think the same about them but the brief for the DC gun ban, in addition to all the other boneheaded things this man has done to screw his friends and appease his enemies, has got me wondering if there might be some truth to what his enemies say about his cognitive abilities.

Hoping and praying that Fred will be the man. Any other and we're screwed. [I don't trust the Huckster, not even on guns]

Ron Paul is the only candidate that values and comprehends all of the amendments including the second. We are loosing our sovereignty day by day with Nafta, Cafta, LOST treaty, North American Union, open borders,etc. We need a leader that will reverse this trend before it's too late.

Okay, I am going to lay into the Ron Paul people, because frankly they do not get it:

Do you Ron Paul supporters realize that we in America are going to lose our sovereignty anyways? We are. Presidents Clinton and Bush have already paved the way and it is inevitable.

You are trying to prevent something that is going to happen regardless of whether you like it or not. Do you know what that means? That means you have only two choices: Buy guns and ammo and have them ready for some sort of revolt against the Government, or bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.

You Ron Paul supporters talk about a North American Union like it's in it's infancy. It is not. It is inevitable. This "NAFTA Superhighway" you've been talking about as the possible lynchpin to a one continent government ALREADY EXISTS. It's called I-35 and I-29. You can do nothing to stop it, because it's been this way since the 1970s. What do you say to THAT, Paulbots?

The fact of the matter is that Ron Paul cannot win, no matter what is done. I will not support Ron Paul, because Ron Paul will not prevent anything. I am voting for Fred Thompson because I believe he will DELAY the loss of our sovereignty for 4-8 years, depending.

We in America are going to lose our sovereignty. That much is true and is inevitable in our current climate. The only thing we can do is to prepare for the inevitable by getting guns, ammo, and getting ready to revolt.

That is why I will support Fred Thompson. Because he has the ability to DELAY this stuff for a few years. Ron Paul...he'll get overcome by congress and will not be able to do ANYthing.

" If those are my choices, I'll hope the U.S. goes more to hell in the next 4 years and someone appears that I can vote for."

How is that attitude any different from Leftists who celebrate U.S. losses and casualitues because they damage conservative political clout? If the other side made a comment like that regarding their disappointment in the lack of sufficiently liberal candidates, we'd be jumping all over them with "but don't question your patriotism, right?" retorts.

Yes, Bush is a huge disappointment for real conservatives on a myriad of issues, especially Borders, spending, and now gun rights. Yes, the current crop of GOP candidates is generally disappointing on many of the same issues, to varying degrees depending on the candidate. But it's disingenuous and whiffs of disloyalty to hope the vountry will suffer simply so our political goals can be forwarded down the road. Furthermore, it's a dodgy gamble -- if the country goes too far to hell, who's to say it will be irreversible?

I'm in agreement with those who see a slow erosion of rights and sovereignty, though I'm not convinced of its irreversibility. But I DO think it's important we do everything we can to stem that tide -- even if we sometimes have to settle for slowing it, not reversing it as we'd like. And even a "Moderate" Republican president, especially in his first term, has to at least give a nod to the stauncher poriton of the conservative base, if he wants to maintain his power base. A Democrat has no such compunction -- in fact, screwing us over may very well improve their standing among their supporters.

Adam-your rant against Ron Paul was pitiful. You state that we talk as though the NAU is in it's infancy. Wrong we have been bitching about this for many years but the words fall on deaf ears. Ron Paul has been voting against this for over twenty years.
You state that Thompson can delay this "inevitabily" but Ron Paul can't but offer no proof. What can Thompson do that Paul can't?
Ron Paul is the only candidate that champions the constitution and votes consistently that way.

I understand you're all fine bunch of second amendment advocates, but have you ever considered that all of this talk about "endangering" your right to bear all the arms you can, er, bear is just... talk? That it all may be a smokescreen, a frame, a misdirection to keep your sharp minds off of more important shadowplay?

Well, it is. No Republican or Democrat is determined to take the gun lobby on. And even if your worst fears are realized, say, some amount of control over accessibility to limited types of firearms were to come to pass, it'd probably have little affect on any of you. True, think about it.

With the rash of all the various second amendment collateral damage we've experienced over the proceeding years, including schoolyard massacres, road rage, the recent rise in the murder rate, home invasions, etc, etc, and what have the freedom haters done? Nothing. No serious legislation on limitations or regulations, no Brady Bill expansions: Nope, not a thing.

So, what are you afraid of? The latest shooting in Illinois, as grizzly and depraved as it was, won't change a thing either. (Mark my words.) The rest of the Bill of Rights, and the Ten Commandments for that matter, are being skeletonized as you read this and all you fine folks care about is how many guns you can have? I hope that's not true, but: There's a lot more going on out there than guns.

So get off of this silly distraction and watch what the magicians hands are doing now. You may be suprised.